Soviet Union
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Commonly shortened to "Soviet Union" or "USSR") was a Pre-War nation located across both the European and Asian continents. Initially the main rival of the United States in the 20th century, tension between the two countries began to cool down in the 1960s, and the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet satellite states dissolved in the 1970s, amid drastic free-market reforms to the Soviet economy. Although not in direct conflict with any nation, the Soviet Union was struck during the Great War of 2077, mainly by the Chinese, in response to the Soviet-American alliance. History With the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the Soviet Union was faced with a rather turbulent situation. The new leadership decided that the best course of action to take would be the dismantling of Stalin's personality cult, and the easing of tensions with the western world. This led to the "Sino-Soviet split" as China, a former Soviet ally, began to distance itself, claiming that the Soviets had abandoned "true socialism". The Soviet Union faced several major crisis as the 1960s rolled around. Massive protests in the Eastern Bloc had been squashed, but at a cost. Yugoslavia had broken away from the bloc, and Muslim extremists in the Caucasus had been unleashing a reign of terror against the communist government. It seemed almost certain that the nation would fail before 1970 arrived, but in 1964, the United States government began secret talks with the Soviet Union about easing of tensions, in response to China's newly acquired nuclear capabilities. In 1966, the world was shocked to see images of U.S. president Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Lenoid Brezhnev sitting next to each other, casually discussing the future of U.S.-Soviet relations. The Soviet Union gradually adopted "Open-Door" economic and diplomatic policies towards the rest of the world in the late sixties and early seventies, essentially making an about-face against former policies in the name of preservation of the Union. During this period, the Chinese began a grass-roots nationalist propaganda campaign in order to rally support, leading to a ballooning of its armed forces—the prospect of an invasion from the south prompted the Soviet leadership to establish numerous Siberian and Mongolian bases, which were garrisoned by soldiers who had been pulled from ex-Eastern bloc nations. Resistance to their occupation of Mongolia began the Soviet-Mongolian war of 1976, in which anti-Communist paramilitary forces began a campaign of sabotage and assassination. Ultimately, however, this lead to the full-scale absorption of Mongolia into the Soviet state. The Chinese response to these factors was to establish its own border facilities, usually directly opposite of a Soviet base. During the 80s, the Soviets gradually eased tensions with the rest of Europe, offering economic alliances to any nation who would accept. While this condoned less tension, it also fostered a weakened economy, making the Ruble one of the weakest forms of currency on the global market, matched only by the United States during the Resource Wars. With further stockpiling of arms along the Sino-Soviet border, tensions began to rise, and the Soviet and Chinese leadership—Ran Zhen mao, who had become the Chinese Premier at that point, and Boris Stanislav, who had replaced Leonid Brezhnev—refused to have contact with one another. Many speculated that this was intentional, in order to bring their long-running tensions to a head, though both leaders and their subordinates denied any such allegations. In spite of their denials, the tensions did break out into a full-scale war in 1984. Initially it was just jet reconnaissance on the part of the Chinese—not an uncommon thing during that period. However, instead of just giving the Chinese pilots rude gestures, the Soviet forces stationed at the border bases flew several sorties against the Chinese recon planes, and shot down the vast majority of them. The Chinese interpreted this as a declaration of war, and immediately began shifting its forces towards Mongolia, which was significantly weaker than the rest of the border due to Mongolian dissent causing damage to some infrastructure and materials. The United States watched on, uncertain about the direction the war may take. Though the Soviet soldiers were certainly quality, even by U.S. standards, their technology was on the same level as China, who had vastly more soldiers. In addition, both powers were nuclear-armed. Early on, the difference in numbers was made apparent as the Mongolian bases became overrun. Having established this beach-head, the Soviets would need to make a move quickly in order to regain control over their bases before the Chinese could begin a break-out. In spring, 1985, the United States, looking to both dampen the strength of China and establish a stronger friendship with the U.S.S.R., offered non-combatant aid in the form of supply air-drops to the bases in the east of Siberia, who had been cut off from support due to China's push up through Mongolia, which had seized the Trans-Siberian railway. Boris Stanislav accepted without hesitation This action was met by hot words from Ran Zhen mao, who vowed to "...crush the bitches of the Capitalist dogs on Wall Street." However, the rejuvenation of the Soviet eastern flank allowed them to perform a pincer movement, cutting off a large portion of the Chinese forces and giving the U.S.S.R. leverage to demand a cease-fire. Initially opposed, Ran Zhen mao accepted as his advisers consulted him on the long-term prospects of continuing the war. With literally 65% of his forces trapped behind the enemy, an enemy who had gained a reputation for brutality during the second World War, Ran Zhen mao grudgingly accepted the cease-fire in what became known as the Berlin accords, a treaty signed by both Stanislav and Ran Zhen mao in Berlin during the winter of 1985. The primary point of the treaty was to establish a running peace between the two super-powers, and as such dictated the necessary partial disarmament of China and destruction of at least 2/3rds of both sides' bases. Though the latter was not well-received by either belligerent, both agreed to the terms—Ran Zhen mao primarily agreed because it would make him look universally undesirable to his citizens would he allow nearly 1,100,000 soldiers to die or be imprisoned (and subsequently worked to death) by the Soviets. By 1988, the desired dismantlement of the Soviet's border guard stations had been completed, and the two nations returned to their Pre-War state. The war had returned the Ruble to a more powerful position than it had been, though it was still sub-par compared to many of the most-traded currencies on the global market, and the Soviet Union became aware of the need for a more powerful rifle for their soldiers, as the AKM had obviously not performed as desired. Thus spawned the SVT-92 and its later variants. The nineties were far less turbulent for the Union. After Boris Stanislav was replaced by Serik Armanev, the Soviets adopted a foreign policy which was intended to draw ex-East Bloc nations closer to the Union, although not directly ruled as it had been before the sixties. Poland, in the late nineties, requested the aid of the Soviets in the Polish-Czechoslovak war. Within days of the request, Serik ordered the sale of several thousand units of SVT-92 to the Poles, with the intention of both testing the new rifle, and of weakening or destroying the Czechs, whose megalomaniac tyrant had adopted anti-Soviet politics. The rifle was used extensively during the war, and many of the problems of the design were noted and were to be amended later on during the 21st century. In 2000, Lamellar armor was devised by Soviet military strategists. During the First Sino-Soviet war of the 80s, the Soviet infantry found themselves at the mercy of a vastly superior foe -- in terms of numbers and in production: the Soviets are outnumbered at least 5 to 1, and both sides' armaments were roughly the same -- both used AKM variants. While the Soviets had superior training, they themselves learned of the potential of mass-charges during the Second World War, and feeling the same tactics against them during the First Sino-Soviet war was a shock. In turn, the Soviets first devised the SVT-92 and its later variants, so as to allow each soldier to kill the enemy before that enemy could even fire a single shot, preserving the life of each individual soldier. However, against more than one enemy, the power of the SVT-92 was limited, as it was fairly hard to aim after firing multiple rounds of the 7.92 x 60 mm ammo. In order to protect the soldiers as they acquired new targets, military researchers looked to the past for inspiration -- and some found it, in the form of Lamellar. Lamellar is a suit of mail created by overlapping plates, much like the scales of a reptile. Like sloped armor, this made the armor stronger and lighter, as the overlap increased the thickness of the armor. However, in place of steel or copper, as had been used by the people of the Steppes, the Soviets, using some materials loaned from the U.S., created a set of ceramic/plastic armor. The individual plates gave soldiers a large amount of flexibility, while also giving them above-average protection from intermediate rounds. The primary problem was the armor's complexity in manufacture (requiring a number of steps before the finished product was usable), making large-scale mass-production impossible. Enough units were produced, however, that the soldiers stationed on the Sino-Soviet border were each able to be issued a set. This Lamellar had a fairly long service life, due to the lack of metallic parts and other bits which could degrade over time, and it was fairly simple enough for the average soldier to keep and maintain his armor. right|300px|thumb|Vladivostok in the extreme East of Siberia The early 21st century saw a massive revitalization of the U.S.S.R. on the home front. A set of economic policies brought about much greater freedom of market, and with it the value of the Ruble grew. New educational institutions were begun in 2000, with the largest to be completed at least by 2020. Cities, towns, and villages in Siberia which had suffered from the First Sino-Soviet war were brought back to their pre-war condition, and new nuclear power plants were put into place all throughout the Union. The Trans-Siberian Railway saw an expansion to the north of Siberia, allowing contingency routes to Vladivostok in the event of another Chinese incursion. Vladimir Doroshevich came into power in 2057. Under his guidance, the Soviets continued their longstanding foreign and domestic policies. However, with the outbreak of The European Wars, the Soviet Union followed suit with their American allies, declaring non-alignment in the conflict. However, when German and Hungarian forces began to assail the Polish, who had long been a close ally of the Soviet Union, the Soviets broke their declaration of non-alignment and issued several ultimatums to the German and Hungarian leadership, which was all almost completely ignored. Finally, with the war grinding to a stalemate in Warsaw and along the Vistula river, the supreme Polish commander Bukowski sent a plea to the Soviets, which was accidentally leaked to regional Soviet commanders and interpreted as an invitation to mobilize. As with Czar Nicholas II before, the Soviet forces could not be stopped mid-mobilization, and Doroshevich allowed the intervention to go on, even playing on it to the general public, portraying the Soviets as rescuing fellow Slavs. Within days of the deployment of Soviet forces, all Hungarian advances through southern Poland had been halted, with the lead armored column being decimated by Soviet armor and air support. Luftwaffe attacks all but ceased in the face of the vastly superior MiG-3000, which, as with the Resource Wars, achieved staggering kill ratios, enough to bring the Germans to the negotiating table at last. Meanwhile, however, the Soviets did nothing to stop Yugoslav advances into Bulgaria, or Hungarian aggression against Romania. Due to long-standing enmity between the two powers, the Soviets refused to aid the beleaguered Czechoslovakia, a stance that likely contributed to the Great War. Military The Soviet Armed Forces was the main military force of the Soviet Union and was made up of five seperate branches; Soviet Army, Soviet Navy, Soviet Air Forces,Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces, Soviet Air Defense Force. It was one of the largest and most powerful armies in the world ranking third in the world power scale behind on the People's Liberation Army and the United States Armed Forces. The Soviet Armed Forces had around 12,000,000 active servicemen and women by the time the Resource Wars began and used a combination of both advanced technology and manpower to protect the country and its interests. Nuclear weapons were also major as the USSR was a nuclear weapons state and had many placed in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Government The main government of the USSR was a single party communist state that was lead by the fouding political party, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The party had a monoploy on power and owned large portions of land and portions of the economy. The head of state was the Premier of the Soviet Union who worked alongside the General Secretary of the Communist Party. Despire the single-party status, other political parties existed and ran candidates, but were only permitted by the Soviet Communist Party, such as the National Union Party. Another party, the New Bolshevik Party, which was dedicated to restoring Russia's "Traditional Communist Ways". Thus, they supported China regardless of mass disapproval from the Soviet government and advocated for restoring relations between the two communist powers. The Soviet Union was also a federation and had granted many freedoms to its 15 republics by the 21st century to help keep the union together. The largest republic was the Russian SFSR, which had half of the general Soviet population. Great War The Soviet Union was not directly involved in the Great War to begin with. It began as an exchanged between the U.S. and China, but as China found itself on the losing end, relatively, they turned their attention to their other enemy: the Soviets. They struck at numerous locations in a surprise attack -- cities that fell included Moscow, Kiev, Arkhangelsk, Saint Petersburg, even minor Tiblisi. In retaliation, the skeleton government that had survived (taking shelter in a small compound near Vladivostok, which had miraculously survived the Chinese threat) initiated a full-scale nuclear strike against the Chinese, three minutes into the war. However, minutes later more cities in the Western portion of the Soviet Union came under fire from an unknown source, likely Czechoslovakia. Not quite knowing who had struck, the skeleton government deigned to blanket the entirity of western Europe with nuclear weapons. They did so, quite successfully, but not without reaping the retaliation of those western states who had been hit. Post-War Compared to most of the rest of the world, the majority of the Soviet Union had survived, in the form of Siberia and Kazakhstan. Vladivostok became the Soviets' center of government immediately after the war, and it remained thus for several centuries, running sorties over the rest of the world to determine its state. It was plain that the most heavily-populated area of the Soviet Union was burned to the ground. Seizing the opportunity, remnant factions arose in Russia and Kazakhstan, taking bits and pieces of what was left of the Soviet Union, until the Soviets were relegated only to Vladivostok and its surrounding area in Siberia while the rest of the former union was disputed by various rival factions and fueding warlords. However, Vladivostok remains a force to be reckoned with. Using modified tank turrets, the vicinity of Vladivostok itself became safe from any attacks. Remaining MiG-3000s are capable of stopping any VTOL aircraft en-route to anywhere within their effective range. Many surviving Soviets remained in the service of their skeleton government, and they passed on their skills to subsequent generations of Vladivostok-born Soviets. Moscow was hit hard, though several thousand survivors retreated into the metro tunnels beneath the city. In 2089, a faction was formed called the Soviet Independence Group and they began contacting various settlements and negotiating with other factions across the former USSR and convinced many of them to joint he SIG. The SIG was essentially the continuation of the Soviet government and they fought to maintain and eventually reunify the country and have been at war with various post-war Russian factions. Category:Locations Category:Pre-War Countries